Feather starfish, also known as sea lilies. There are many bright colors, such as yellow, red, black, etc., and the appearance is also different. Small feathers can reach more than 40 and look like a bunch of erect feathers. Although it is a nocturnal animal, some feathered stars also move during the day. They hide in a darker place to feed on plankton that drifts with the current. When night falls, it crawls out of hiding places to find a suitable location to hunt for plankton rushing by. The special diet makes it difficult to keep in the family aquarium, and it does not harass other residents in the coral tank. When it feels threatened, it abandons some feathers for self-preservation. In the wild, new feathers are quickly reborn, but in aquariums, there are very few rebirths. The tolerance for sudden changes in PHP is very poor, it is sensitive to copper-containing drugs, it cannot tolerate high nitrate environments, and many fish oils now think that feather stars cannot be fed, but it is not more difficult to successfully raise them than to ascend to the sky.
In the beginning, the first challenge was to raise them. Ever since I learned that feathered starfish are hover-eating animals, I copied natural foods as much as possible. My research shows that their diet consists mainly of detritus, plankton, and inorganic particles. To try to provide the food, I installed a large mesh bag filled with biospheres in the last groove of the tank. This bag will collect debris throughout the day. I'm going to turn off the protein separator and shake the bag so that the debris flows into the main tank. After about an hour, turn the protein isolate back on. Repeat several times a day. In addition, live marine rotifers, newly hatched shrimp and phytoplankton will be fed directly to feathered starfish. Every day I observe their foraging and routine behavior, trying to figure out how they react to it. I also continue to experiment with different kinds of food, design different types of water flow, and adjust feeding methods. Unfortunately, I lost these three feathered starfish, but with each loss I learned a lot and began to understand their weaknesses in breeding more deeply.
Challenging difficult creatures is a slightly controversial subject, and it's also understandable. I firmly believe that if you are an experienced aquarist and are prepared to make a sincere commitment to this task and work tirelessly to pursue success, then your efforts are the only way to advance this hobby (and knowledge base). It was in this spirit that I continued my journey and ordered more feathered starfish from the fish shop. Now, the biggest feathered starfish I've been breeding for 2.5 years, and I've got a total of 10 in the aquarium. Below are my current practices and opinions that seem to have succeeded.
A key factor in the survival of feathered starfish is to ensure that they go directly into a very stable aquarium. Feathered starfish cannot accept immature systems. They need pure water--- in fact, feeding is the toughest problem. I believe that eggs with a slightly greater water treatment capacity than the system's water capacity and a large amount of water change can help control nutrient salts. Currently, every Wednesday and Saturday I use ESV B-Ionic sea salt for water exchanges, with a minimum of 25% water transfer. The salinity remains between 1.0225-1.026. I mixed the seawater at once and then changed the water gallon by gallon. Although this is quite monotonous, it works well and does not change the parameters of the aquarium too quickly. Feather starfish are also very sensitive to changes in temperature so adequate cooling and heating systems are a must. Try to keep the temperature of the aquarium below 24 degrees. The temperature target in my system is 22-23 degrees.
Water flow and proper water flow patterns are also essential for raising filter-feeding organisms like feathered starfish. When feathered starfish forage for food, their arms form a filter fan to grab food. The shape of the filter fans varies depending on their variety and the water flow in the aquarium box. Feathered starfish will move throughout the aquarium until they find their favorite foraging spot. Keep in mind that just as different varieties form different filter fans, they also have different feeding behaviors and may like different foods. Some varieties hide throughout the day, revealing only a few tentacles, and then fully exposed at night. Others tend to be exposed to living stones all day long.
Understanding habits and habits will go a long way toward raising feathered starfish, but how to raise them? The continuous development of aquarium hobbies has led directly to regular updates of new products and feeds to help simplify the once severe challenges, and now a large part of the available feeds on the market is suitable for feathered starfish. Feathered starfish need to be fed continuously throughout the day, and the conditions must be continuous feeding. There are several methods that are ok. First, go through a siphon or pipette directly or aligned with the feathered starfish to make it enjoy a food "shower", ensuring it can eat a lot of food at once. In order to provide a continuous food supply, I prefer an automatic feeder, which distributes food regularly on a 24-hour cycle. If you are using liquid feed, you can titrate it manually or with a titration pump.
So, what's the feeding feather starfish? I kept 10 feathered starfish in my non-photosynthetic aquarium. The feeding plan is as follows:
1) Use the Fish Mate automatic feeder ---- daily to feed Fauna Marin Ultra Sea fan, Fauna Marin Ultra Clam, and Fauna Marin Ultramin F 4 times a day for 2 hours, 2 hours a day.
2) At 7:00 a.m. daily--- fauna Marin UltraMin D and Fauna Marin UltraMin are artificially fed into the aquarium.
3) Daily at 6:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. – manual feeding of Ref Nutrition Rotifeas. Ref Nutrition OysterFeast is fed artificially at 7 a.m. and Ref Nutrition Shellfish Diet at 7 p.m.
4) Every day at 6 p.m., --- fed frozen fish food Piscine Energetics or Hikari bran shrimp.
5) Every night at 8 p.m., --- fed frozen Argent Cyclop-eeze.
6) Feather starfish seem to like Ultra min F I usually mix into 1/2 cup of water in the jar: 1/8th teaspoon of Ultra Min F, frozen Argent Cyclop-eeze, 1 ml of Ref Nutrition Oyster Feast. It is then fed directly to the feathered starfish with a feeder (Kent Sea Squirt).
7) Daily - Gently stir part of the gravel in the aquarium so that the debris merges with the water body.
8) Every day--- place a bag of Fauna Marin Ultralith stones in the last compartment of the bottom tank (I now use a biosphere instead) and shake the bag so that debris flows into the main tank. Fauna Marin Ultra Bio and Ultra Bak are artificially titrated above ultralith stones.
To this day, feathered starfish are difficult to find in most aquarium shops. You can order it from your local fish shop or buy it online. If you want to buy by mail, even if you have an ice pack, try to avoid buying it in the middle of summer, because the role of ice packs is limited. Feathered starfish may take a little longer to adjust to aquariums than you might think. Usually I use the drip method for 3 to 4 hours before putting the feather starfish in the aquarium. During adaptation, they should shed one or two tentacles, don't panic, as they will regenerate. In the aquarium, the feathered starfish will also regularly shed tentacles.
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